Gambero Rosso 2016: Discovering Italian Wine Regions – Custoza DOC

Few weeks ago, I attended Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri event in New York. For those unfamiliar, Gambero Rosso is a leading Italian wine guide, where the wines are rated with the symbol of a glass (bicchiere in Italian). The wine can get a rating of one, two or three glasses, and those three glasses (Tre Bicchieri) rated wines considered to be some of the best wines the Italy has to offer. Every year, Gambero Rosso conducts a series of tastings worldwide, to celebrate these best Italian wines, and the tastings are called Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri events.

While I had been attending Tre Bicchieri events for the past 4 years, this year was the first time I also attended seminars conducted right before the general tasting. The first seminar was dedicated to the white wines of a small, and I would bet, largely unknown to the majority of the wine drinkers, region in Veneto, called Custoza.

Custoza is located at the south border of the Veneto region, on the shore of the Lake Garda. Excellent terroir to grow wine grapes, and white grapes in particular. Region has mild winters, which definitely helps not to worry about the frost. Another important characteristic of Custoza is mixed soil – clay, sandstone, limestone, which leads to a diversity in the wines. Overall, there are about 700 wine growers in Custoza, 70 wineries, and total wine production is roughly 12 million bottles per year (1 million cases). The region is fast growing on Italian market and represents great value for the money. A number of indigenous grape varieties are use in wine making in Custoza – Garganega, Fernanda/Bianca Fernanda (Cortese clone), Trebbiano di Soave, Trebbianello (known as Tokai Friulano in other regions), Riesling Italico (a.k.a. Welch Riesling), Incrocio Manzoni (cross created in 20th century).

Seminar presenters also made a statement about Custoza wines having a great aging potential – I would like to get back to that after presenting you with the tasting notes. We tasted total of 8 wines in this seminar:

I very much enjoyed young Custoza wines – many were vibrant and delicious. When it comes to the two older wines, I wouldn’t say I was fun (I’m sure you can see it in my notes). Yes, I like tertiary aromas of older wines, but I still want the wine to have harmony and balance – and this was not the case here.

Very interesting learning experience in any case, plus a new grape (Incrocio Manzoni), or even two if I will count Fernanda as a separate clone/grape. So, have you ever had Custoza wines? What do you think of them?

In the next post, I will be talking about Gambero Rosso Special Awards master class, so until the next time – cheers!